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HOW TO WRITE A BETTER BUSINESS NEWSLETTER
by Brian Konradt
A marketing
strategy is worthless if all it does is promote your business and blatantly
plea to prospects to hire you. Such is the case with many business newsletters.
Few writers understand how to use a business newsletter to secure clients in
the long term. Instead they use their newsletters to pitch their services and
products, and advertise how qualified they are. This way does not work
effectively. It's why writers don't bother publishing a second issue of their
newsletters — because their first issues were tossed in the trash and did
not get results.
Once you learn to harness my techniques, you won't be
a writer who calls it quits. Your business newsletter will be different and
powerful. It'll serve as a business-builder, lead-generator, and repetitious
project-producing marketing tool — not just a boring promotional piece
that prospects and clients look forward to throwing out.
Guidelines to Create a Business-Building Newsletter
Your business
newsletter should serve multiple functions, not just one. Here's how to do it.
Function #1: Use your newsletter to sell your skills and
expertise—but do it quietly and cleverly.
A primary focus of your
newsletter should be to provide worthy, timely, helpful, problem-solving
information — anything else, such as blatant promotion or bragging about
the benefits of your skills and services, will trigger the prospect or client
to toss your newsletter away and he or she may ignore all other future issues.
For this reason, you must learn to sell yourself cleverly and subtly within the
attention-arresting copy of your newsletter.
You can do so by using
specific examples, samples, and results you've gotten for other clients to
footnote points in your information. Your newsletter should contain 80%
information and 20% (or less) promotion. You can also include any awards you've
received, if you did charity work for a non-profit association to help raise
funds, spoke at a workshop or gave a seminar, or had an article or book
published. Clients and prospects enjoy reading newsworthy information.
Function #2: Use your newsletter as a repetitious marketing tool.
Securing a client is a multi-step process — and marketing
repeatedly to the same prospect or client is a vital key to secure work or
additional work. By publishing your business newsletter monthly, you will
satisfy this major requirement and increase the chances of the prospect or
client outsourcing work to you. Although many writers publish their newsletters
monthly or bi-weekly, it usually takes, according to direct mail experts, five
consecutive times to make an impact.
Function #3: Use your
newsletter to interest prospects and clients in what you have to say.
Your newsletter should contain interesting, problem-solving copy — not
fluff or vague generalizations. You can craft interesting copy by writing copy
that:
a) solves a problem or problems;
b) solves a potential or
future problem;
c) helps the prospect or client achieve better results;
d) lends valuable advice;
e) helps define his/her problem;
f)
provides case studies of mistakes that other businesses have made and how
he/she can avoid them.
Providing interesting, problem-solving copy is
one way to get a prospect or client to read your newsletter immediately —
not next week or when he or she reorganizes the office and discovers your
newsletter buried in the clutter. When you're able to get a prospect or client
to read your newsletter immediately, you increase the chances of him or her
taking action to contact you for an upcoming assignment or project.
Function #4: Use your newsletter to bridge together your interesting,
problem-solving copy with your valuable skills.
How does a prospect
or client know you're capable of exceeding their expectations on their next
assignment or project, if they decided to hire you? Because your newsletter
subtly shows them that you are capable. Make sure your newsletter bridges
together the insightful information with your skills as a freelancer. Your
information should be an extension of your experiences, skills, expertise, and
knowledge. By providing this type of information, the prospect or client will
realize you're well qualified to undertake their next assignment or
project.
Function #5: Use your newsletter to generate new work from
existing clients.
You may already write for an existing client, but
that client may not realize you also write other types of competent copy. You
can make existing clients aware of your other types of services by writing
about how some of your services have solved problems or achieved better results
for other clients.
Function #6: Use your newsletter to build
rapport and establish new relationships.
When a prospect or client
receives your newsletter on a frequent basis, the information you provide has
the ability to create rapport and build a long-term relationship — two
vital elements that get prospects to take action to hire you. Each issue of
your newsletter should increase awareness of your expertise and your services
and keep your name and phone number fresh in the mind of the prospect or
client.
You can build rapport and establish a relationship by:
a)
writing in first person form;
b) providing insightful, expert-oriented
information;
c) understanding the needs of the prospect or client;
d)
subtly revealing your willingness and eagerness to help solve their
problems.
Function #7: Use your newsletter to maintain existing
relationships.
Communication is an essential link to maintaining
prosperous, long-term relationships with existing clients. Your business
newsletter can serve as a communications mouthpiece, keeping your name and
number fresh in the minds of existing clients, as well as updating them on new
events about your business and how you're helping other clients.
Function #8: Use your newsletter to initiate a sell/provide referrals.
Each newsletter has the potential to initiate a sell or bring referrals
your way. As stated before, when you help a prospect solve a problem via your
newsletter or provide information that shows him how to achieve better results,
he'll want to call you to produce similar results — or he may know someone
who could benefit from your skills and expertise and refer work your way.
Function #9: Use your newsletter to generate additional
responses.
Your newsletter may be the first step in a multi-step
marketing process to secure clients. You can include in your newsletter other
incentives to pull in responses. For example, you can offer a Free
Consultation, in which you ask the prospect to call you for free advice and
solutions on his current project. You can also offer a Free Material Review
incentive, in which you critique a piece of the prospect's promotional material
and then discuss the weaknesses and strengths with him. Or you can use your
newsletter to advertise free reprint articles or back issues of your newsletter
(that have your byline and phone number on them) that the prospect can request.
Function #10: Use your newsletter to increase the value of your
services.
Because each newsletter subtly focuses on your skills and
expertise as a freelancer, each issue builds upon the last one and emphasizes
and re-emphasizes your skills and expertise. Your first issue may not have had
an impact, but by the second, third, or fourth issue, the prospect begins to
appreciate your problem-solving skills and may rely on your skills for his next
assignment or project.
Function #11: Use your newsletter to
position yourself as a top expert in your field.
The information in
your business newsletter has the ability to position yourself as an expert in
your field, so use this toward your advantage. Begin to think of yourself as an
expert — the best one around, and subtly convey this image in your
copy.
To position yourself as an expert, subtly provide:
a)
specific results you've gotten for other clients;
b) quotes from popular
authors or keynote speakers to supplement and support what you're saying;
c) brief, interesting footnotes as to what you've learned from books and
magazines, or at workshops and seminars.
When a prospect or client
begins to see how knowledgeable and active you are in your field, he will begin
to look upon you as an expert — and you will get the work, not the other
freelancer.
Function #12: Use your newsletter to create and
maintain a positive image of yourself and your business.
You are
responsible as to how other clients and prospects perceive you — and you
can change, alter and manipulate your image with a business newsletter. For
example, you can create a newsletter that pigeonholes yourself as a freelancer
with a special skill or talent.
How to Create Interest About Your
Newsletter
Most writers mail their business newsletters randomly to
prospects on their mailing lists, piggyback them with their promotional
material, or leave stacks of them at workshops or networking sessions. These
days e-mailing newsletters to clients and prospects have become the most
popular method of distribution. Although these marketing approaches work well
to create awareness about your newsletter as well as to generate leads, they
don't, however, do the one vital thing: commit prospects to receive additional
issues of your newsletter. The best way to maximize your results is to offer an
option for prospects to "subscribe" to your free newsletter.
By asking
prospects to complete a subscription form and return it to you, or subscribe
via an online form, you'll be able to:
• identify prospects who
are interested in learning more about what you know and how you can help
them;
• eliminate prospects who are not interested in your skills or
services;
• solicit additional, specific information about the
interested prospect. For example, your subscription form can ask additional
questions to find out the needs and interests of the prospect.
Make
sure your subscription form tells the prospect what to do with it. Give your
mailing address, fax number or request the prospect to call you to request a
free subscription. When prospects return their subscription forms, plug the
information into a database and begin a subscription mailing list. Your
existing clients should automatically be on this mailing list and should be
receiving your newsletter. At the end of the year, ask those prospects who did
not become paying clients to renew their subscriptions. This way you know
they're still interested in learning more about what you know and how you can
help them.
Writing Effective, Attention-Arresting Newsletter
Copy
Here are some tips to maximize the impact of your newsletter so
the prospect or client reads your information immediately and finds it
valuable:
• Craft a creative
masthead. Do a brainstorming session with yourself to come up with ideas
as to what you will name your newsletter. For example, when I provided direct
mail writing services, I called my newsletter Konradt's Direct Mail
Directions, because I wanted to create an image in the minds of prospects
and clients that my direct mail writing skills could pull them in the right
direction to get the right results. If you can, use your full or last name in
your newsletter's masthead, so this way the prospect or client will immediately
link your name with the insightful content of your newsletter.
•
Write brief copy. Avoid long-winded sentences and
endless paragraphs. Favor periods over commas.
•
Write problem-solving copy. There are four primary
reasons why a prospect or client will read your newsletter — and one of
them is not to be entertained. The prospect or client either wants to learn
something new and different, produce better results, find solutions to existing
or future problems, read case studies or experiences of your own that will help
define his needs or problems.
To grab the prospect's interest
immediately, start your newsletter off with a problem that he or she may face
and provide the solution — but not right away. In the middle, give
examples of other businesses that had encountered the same problem (which
you've helped them overcome), results you've gotten for other clients who faced
the same dilemma, and how your skills achieved the solutions.
In one
of my newsletters I used the following lead to hook the prospect: "Your small
start-up company may have a great product to sell to the masses via the mail,
but don't anticipate a 1.5% or better response rate. Your sales may be sluggish
at first, and it's not due to competition or not tapping into the 'right'
market. Here's why you might receive a sluggish response, along with 10
preventive measures you can take now to assure a profitable response
rate...."
• Specifics sell — so always
use them. This includes numbers, statistics, percentages, results, pie
charts, graphs, and so on. Avoid vague or ambiguous generalizations.
• Use bullets and callouts to break up the
copy and pull the reader into your main points.
•
Craft creative column headings to separate the copy and
pull the prospect into your information. Here are some column headings
that I've used: Put Power into Your Promo Pieces: a column about
crafting copy to pull in an order; and if not an order, a response. Envelop
Screaming: Is it Necessary? a column about the pros and cons of writing
copy on the outer envelop to grab attention. Repetition is the Key to a
Profitable Response: a column about marketing repeatedly to the same
prospective customer to solicit an order.
•
Use first person form to create intimacy, and
speak to the reader in second-person form with the word, "you."
• Provide promotional particulars at the end.
It's okay to include your name, title, a 1-2 line promotional line or
positioning statement that states what type of freelancer you are and who you
freelance for, phone number and address, and a footnote of the types of
freelance services you provide.
• Include
incentives. Offer a Free Consultation or a free incentive to get the
prospect to contact you to learn more about your services and how you can help
him or her. I often provide a Free Consultation offer: "Do you need
professional advice with your current or upcoming project? Call me. I know what
works — and what doesn't. Let's discuss your needs. Any time:
201-262-3277."
* Lastly, add a brief biography
line about yourself.
© B. Konradt
Brian
Konradt is a freelance writer and founder of FreelanceWriting.Com (http://www.freelancewriting.com), a free web site to help
writers master the business and creative sides of freelance writing, and
BookCatcher.com (http://www.bookcatcher.com), a free website to help authors
promote their books.
RECOMMENDED RESOURCES
1)
E-Newsletters That Work, The Small Business Owner's Guide To
Creating, Writing and Managing An Effective Electronic Newsletter by
Michael J. Katz
2)
Creating Family Newsletters: 123 Ideas for Sharing Memorable
Moments With Family and Friends by Elaine Floyd
3)
How to Publish Your Newsletter: A Complete Guide to Print and
Electronic Newsletter Publishing by Carol Luers Eyman
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